Eight people have been sentenced to death in connection with deadly attacks in China’s western Xinjiang region – where violence has raged between the Muslim Uighur minority and the majority Han Chinese. <br /><br /> In April, a knife and bomb attack at a train station in the region’s capital of Urumqi killed three and injured 79. In May, 39 people at a Urumqi market were killed when attackers hurled explosives out of the windows of two SUVs. <br /><br /> Five others were given a sentence of “suspended death”, which in China usually means life in prison. Four people were given lesser prison sentences, the official Xinhua news agency said.<br /><br /> Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say the government’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam, have provoked unrest. Beijing denies that.<br /><br /> In such a heavily politicised environment, a fair trial was impossible, said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for exile group the World Uyghur Congress. <br /><br /> “China has not looked at all for the root causes of the incident from the point of view of their own extreme policies,” he said in an emailed statement.
